US scholar hails China's achievement under Xi

SAN FRANCISCO - China has scored great achievements in the past five years which will guide Western countries to reform the global financial system, a US scholar said Tuesday.

In an written interview with Xinhua Tuesday, Michael Steger, president of the Bay Area Chapter of the International Schiller Institute, a global political and economic think tank with headquarters in Germany and the United States, attributed the China's achievements to the strong Chinese leadership.

As early as in the late 1990s, the ruling Communist Party of China acknowledged the shortcomings of the Western financial system and sought to establish a strong internal financial system to promote the development of China.

"This was not easy during that time period because the Soviet Union had just collapsed and the West looked to be the dominant system. However, over the last 20 years the West has shown major shortcomings in its policies, both with the numerous wars and the shortsighted economic regime which grossly ignored infrastructure requirements," he said.

He noted that China has over the past five years set its own independent course governed by a policy of development-for-all.

"This is perhaps best reflected in the Belt and Road Initiative, which makes the lessons China learned from its own internal development available to nations throughout the world," Steger said.

China's willingness to blaze its own pathway, with an orientation to share the means of development, has now become a stabilizing factor for the world, and creates a unique opportunity for US President Donald Trump to reorient US policy towards the growing potential of the Indo-Pacific economy, the scholar added.

China has great patience and a sense of inclusion in their orientation, and poverty eradication programs, for example, are done with a great concern for all the Chinese people, he explained.

"I think the last five years have been a great learning experience for China's leadership under President Xi Jinping. It has been a process of discovery to see what China is capable of accomplishing and contributing to the world," he said.

Most global economists emphasize consumer orientation, but the key is the development of people, both through infrastructure and skill levels as well as culture, Steger said.

He hoped that China's new leadership will take inspiration from the last five years, and will expand with great emphasis on the Belt and Road Initiative.

"This is the most important project for the future of not just China or Eurasia, but for the entire world," he said.

The US scholar also said that China is facing some present and future challenges.

"The Western financial system remains highly unstable. As of today, there have been no positive structural changes to address this escalating crisis, an international crisis which actually began when former US President Richard Nixon ended the Bretton Woods System in 1971," he said.

Instead of real reforms, there has been massive money printing, with major inflation in housing, fuel, health, and education costs in the West over the last 40 years, said Steger.

He pointed out that the orientation now throughout Asia for major infrastructure development can push the West to change its financial system.

The International Schiller Institute is a political and cultural network advocating the development of major economic infrastructure projects on a global scale.

It also calls for a reform of the world financial system to encourage investment in the physical economy and suppress financial speculation.